1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the generation of visual data through an image capture device during an audio/visual session such as an ‘audio/visual chat’ session or during video game play. More specifically, the present invention relates to control of lighting conditions in a user environment whereby the bandwidth consumed by transmission of image data generated and/or captured during such audio/visual sessions may be effectively managed.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the increased processing capabilities of various computing systems, new methods for interacting with those computer systems have become available. For example, a variety of input devices employing video image capture allow user control of or interaction with objects on a graphical display such as a video monitor.
Such video input devices often are responsive to the movement or position of a user in the field of view of an image capture device. Video image processing translates the movement of the user that has been captured as a sequence of video images into signals that may be used, for example, to control a character or avatar in a video game. Alternatively, image processing may generate a video image to be displayed in a ‘chat’ session in a manner similar to a video conference.
An image capture device typically scans a field of view in which a user may be present (e.g., a user environment such as an office, game room, living room or the like). The captured video image may be applied to a video digitizer that provides digital output to a processor that analyzes and processes the digital information received from the digitizer. Based upon the position or movement of the participant in the field of view, the processor produces signals that are used by the graphics generating system to move objects on the display. Similarly, the system may generate an image of the user for transmission to another user in a chat session.
The output of the devices on graphical displays can be significantly affected by a variety of factors, especially lighting conditions in the user environment. The computer processing time required for image processing in an ideal user environment may be extensive and complex and tends to require substantial computing and/or temporal resources. A user environment that is overexposed or underexposed as to particular light sources only complicates such processing activities in that the system must compensate for the adverse lighting conditions thereby resulting in slower computing operations and affecting any real-time interactions. In some instances, the lighting conditions are so adverse that a computing system cannot compensate for the particular environment conditions and inaccurate data—if any—is generated thereby resulting in incorrect game control or the generation of poor chat session video.
Similarly, lighting conditions may contribute to the amount of bandwidth consumed by transmission of a captured video image (or images). This may be especially true in the context of real-time, full-motion video as may be generated in the context of a video chat session. Video signals, by their very nature, consume large amounts of bandwidth notwithstanding the application of a variety of compression techniques (e.g., lossy compression) as are known in the art. An overwhelming presence of a certain color or colors in a particular environment (e.g., as might be generated by bright lights of a particular color) may be captured by an image capture device. Transmission of that image and its excessive color saturation may increase an overall file size and lend to excessive bandwidth consumption. Excessive bandwidth consumption may, in turn, contribute to a degraded conferencing experience (e.g., jitter).
There is a need for an image capture device whereby the lighting conditions of various user environments can be automatically and dynamically controlled subject to the particular requirements of the capture device or hardware and software related thereto. Additionally, there is a need for lessening the computational burdens of an image processing system coupled to such a device whereby the system may function substantially in real-time thus providing the user with a natural interaction experience with regard to a game, chat session, or any other interaction involving the aforementioned image capture device. Further still, there is a need in the art to reduce bandwidth consumption that may occur as a result of the capture of certain image data that increases overall transmission file size.